


Texting 8-D

by blueincandescence



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, formerly part of my Experimental Design drabble collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: "Nat and Banner?" A little ficlet about one of the times Clint Barton — Hawkeye — misses that his best friend is sweet on the doc.





	Texting 8-D

In the hum of the southwest elevator of Avengers Tower, Clint whistled the very tune he’d complained — loudly and often — was driving him up the wall all weekend. Now it scored a mental slideshow of every moment that would keep him going, at least until the next time he could afford to take his eye off the big tent circus they were running.

At one of the lab floors, the elevator came to a pause. Clint cut off his whistle when the doors slid open, but resumed a slower and quieter version when he saw no one in the weird sunlit dimness. 

If the Avengers had any SHIELD-level secrets, they were housed on the lab floors. Clint knew this because, on top of the general creepy vibe, Nat certainly thought so. Far as he knew, she spent more time poking around the labs than she did at her laptop trying to convince JARVIS to let her hack him ‘for fun.’ Hell, though, maybe she was having fun. She’d certainly been laughing enough lately.

Clint swiped the keypad to close the doors on the empty hallway, and looked up at the ceiling. “JARVIS?” he started, intending to ask the AI’s opinion of Nat’s technological prowess. She’d always been smug, and he’d love some ammunition to shoot her down the next time she came at him with some of her patented ‘the student was always the master’ bullshit. 

But his question was stopped by a sudden, “Hold the elevator!” 

Clint swung his duffle between the doors and a second later he was joined by a rumpled lab coat personified. Banner had his head down as he shifted through a leather case stuffed with loose white papers. Several scribbled physics equations and a coffee-ringed sketch of a monster robot caught the corner of his vision, but Clint didn’t comment. Let Nat deal with the mad scientist. 

Still, Clint had to inquire, “What’s up, Doc?” partly because he’d liked the phrase since he was a kid and partly because Bruce was muttering to himself. 

Becoming trapped in an enclosed metal shaft with an agitated Hulk was high on Clint’s list of ‘things that would make Monday morning at the office that much worse.’

“I can’t find — I swear I had it an hour ago…” Banner blinked behind his glasses, then straightened. “Sorry. Clint. Welcome back. How was your mission — I mean your trip. How was it?”

Yeesh. The guy sounded like he’d been without human company for weeks. Which, really, wouldn’t be all that surprising.

What Clint said was, “Brought back bagels.”

Banner, having hitched his leather bag and fixed his collar, sounded a lot more level when he replied almost sheepishly, “We live in New York City.”

Fairer point than he knew. Nat had called Clint out on his unimaginative cover before he’d left. Clint just shrugged. “Thor’ll still be impressed.”

Banner snorted. A buzz sent him into his bag again, from which he eventually dug out an honest to God flip phone. He let out a noise between a grunt and gasp, half-strangled and half-amazed. Clint caught a smile-with-sunglasses and a thumbs up before Banner shut his phone.

Clint leaned back so Bruce could shuffle forward to key in his destination. “I found my file,” he said, because those two numbers did kind of require an explanation. 

“Nat’s a curious person,” Clint replied.

“Yes,” Banner agreed. “And persistent. She’s been trying to get me…out,” he said, palming his phone. He let that pronouncement hang a long moment before he asked, “Did you ever notice, she uses a lot of —” He gave a little flourish. 

Christ, the guy looked so confused, Clint had to laugh. He’d put an arrow through his own eyeball before he’d let anything about his family slip, but all he could think was, ‘Yeah, well, she learned to text from my preteen, so imagine how many emoticons I get a day.’ 

Instead, he shrugged. “I stopped trying to understand her thing a long time ago. I just go with it.”

A scroll of blue caught Clint’s attention. ‘I AM LARGE — I CONTAIN MULTITUDES.’

Clint rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Just so unbearably smug. 

“’Just go with it,’” Banner echoed. He’d evidently missed the message. He was nodding while patting down his hair, like Clint had just passed on some sage piece of advice. At Nat’s floor, he got off, adding, “Thanks.”

Doors closed and eyes back on the ceiling, Clint asked, “The hell are you up to with him?”

The scroll changed to the outline of three little girls just as the speakers started blasting, “‘Fighting crime, trying to save the world…’”

“Joke’s on you.” Clint folded his arms in front of him and bounced his neck to the beat. “This is my favorite part,” he told Nat, before resuming his whistling with a vengeance. 


End file.
